My mind is like one of Kayla's almost two year old drawings. I'm rather proud of it mostly, like Kayla with her drawings, willingly showing it off to anyone who will give me the time of day, anxiously awaiting the "ahhs" and "oohs" as people exclaim what a good job I've done and how 'beautiful' the scribbled mess of my mind is.
Lately, however, I have noticed Kayla becoming more purposeful with her drawing. She stops occasionally to gaze at her work so far before continuing with what I can only assume is new resolve to complete her masterpiece with perfect strokes of the Bic Biro. Suddenly her scribbles aren't so haphazard and I can tell, it's true, she's on her artful way to drawing flowers and trees and neck-less, long legged people with scarily long eyelashes (based on previous experience with my 7 year old Laney).
My mind, on the other hand, shows no such signs of evolution, in fact the mess (rather like Laney's bedroom floor) attracts the clutter of more useless junk entirely effortlessly. It's not for lack of trying of course. Refer to today's first sentence penned (or is it keyed?) by yours truly and it's plain to see I in fact consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, a "thinker" as it were, perhaps even a philosopher of the 21st century, a ponderer, a poet, without a doubt worthy of conversations beyond weather and Hollywood scandals. And yet, if I were to empty the contents of my mind at a moment's notice, I am challenged to understand that over 90% would be filled with thoughts of things that in their entirety are not, in any way shape or form, worthy of thought, time or impending speech. Furthermore, I have lost true focus, lost relevant thought, lost passionate purpose, and lost all sense of what it is I am waiting for in life.
I wait for the postman, I wait for the money to transfer, I wait for banana's to come down in price, I wait for Laney to be a teenager, I wait for Kayla to start toilet training, I wait for my husband to come home from work, I wait for the busy times to be over, I wait for family to return, I wait for family to get lost, I wait for cakes to bake, I wait for the cleaning fairy to arrive, I wait for time to pass, I wait for summer to come, I wait for things to be over, I wait for things to begin, I wait for times to get better, I wait for hard things to pass, I wait for the kettle to boil. And while none of this waiting is intrinsically wrong, I have been reminded (rather starkly, like a mirror shoved in your face the second you wake up from a bad nights sleep) that with out the context of the true "wait" all other waiting stands useless, meaningless, a complete and utter distraction and waste of time. And so my poor, tired (for no good reason) mind has finally realised that along with the kilos I have in fact been losing my "wait".
C.S. Lewis said "if I find in myself, desires nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was not made for here". Paul wrote, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved."
Me, myself and I, we have not been groaning. Well now, that's a lie, plenty of groaning, just none so righteous and worthwhile. So little waiting for Heaven. Hardly any reaching for things out of this world. Miniscule amounts of finding peace in the hope that I am saved beyond all days, jobs, duties, weather and time. Beyond parenting, grocery shopping, baking, marriage and toilet scrubbing. Beyond coffee breaks, brilliant food, brilliant friends and brilliant family. Beyond hair brushing, eyebrow waxing, exercising and energy in energy out. Beyond trouble, worry, and things that really suck. Beyond injury, emotion, psychology and philosophy. Saved, waiting, hoping beyond all the things that characterise this world.
I want to be waiting for that. Not for the kettle to boil. I want the ability to wait, first and foremost, for Heaven, for Him.
Decision: Time to gain some wait.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
30 On Purpose
Now it is true that I just had a birthday not that long ago, and it is true that I only turned 28 at said birthday. It is also true, that although my mathematical skill is hardly worth mentioning in any conversation, I do know that 28 is not old at all (although I'm not sure what is old...guess it depends who you ask. My 7 year old think I'm ancient) and that it is also quite a number of seconds, minutes, hours and days before I will get to say I am 30 years old.
BUT...never the less, I am so excited to be 30 that when I became 28 (which somehow seems so much closer to 30 than 27 ever did) I couldn't help but give myself permission to start thinking (on a regular basis) about turning 30. And not just thinking, because the thinking morphed into envisioning, which gave way to dreaming, which was eventually overrun by the absurd notion that being a 30 year old woman was no doubt going to be the best era of my life, bringing respect, honour and making dreams come true. Now with the gift of hindsight I can clearly see that given the choice, I almost always lean towards the disaster of naivete, but this latest little tangent from reality, I must say, has been full of delight (indeed delightful)!
You see, in my sugary little dreamland of rainbows and delight, a 30 year old woman is the recipient of a great many gifts that a woman under 30 simply cannot receive. A 30 year old mother, for example, conjures images of a stable, loving woman who knows how to nurture her children and has some wisdom to offer on the ever illusive art of parenthood. A 30 year old wife is one who has worked the kinks, accepted her faults and sees the disasters coming in time to at least flinch in anticipation, all the while falling deeper in love. A 30 year old woman knows how to cut her hair (she's already committed all the hair related crimes in her teens and twenties and has now settled comfortably knowing that a pixie cut just doesn't work for everyone). A 30 year old woman walks with an air of confidence and realisation that life is in full swing and the time for waiting and sitting idly on the sideline is over. And most importantly (here is the heart of the heart of my daydream) a 30 year old woman requires and receives respect from those around her, young and old. Her efforts are no longer seen as the passionate yearnings of a young and somewhat flighty girl, but as researched and well earned talent. Suddenly, upon turning 30, a woman has a voice that is heard just that little bit more than the 29 year old sitting next to her. She could write a book, she could speak to the masses, she could enter into politics, she could be taken seriously!
The loveliest part of my walk on the clouds is that as I am not yet 30 there is nothing to quell my excitement or prove my naivete ridiculous. I can, quite happily, spend the next two years turning 30 on purpose! Looking forward to all things great, preparing for the well respected life of a 30 year old woman, knowing that the best is yet to come! And though the not so welcome visitor of reality does come a-knocking from time to time and I know that although silver lined there are still clouds, I can in all my youthful passion, pour the glass of my life half full and look forward with purpose and dignity to being 30 and all the wonderful things that come with it.
Decision: Disasters aren't disasters until they get here. No point looking for them.
BUT...never the less, I am so excited to be 30 that when I became 28 (which somehow seems so much closer to 30 than 27 ever did) I couldn't help but give myself permission to start thinking (on a regular basis) about turning 30. And not just thinking, because the thinking morphed into envisioning, which gave way to dreaming, which was eventually overrun by the absurd notion that being a 30 year old woman was no doubt going to be the best era of my life, bringing respect, honour and making dreams come true. Now with the gift of hindsight I can clearly see that given the choice, I almost always lean towards the disaster of naivete, but this latest little tangent from reality, I must say, has been full of delight (indeed delightful)!
You see, in my sugary little dreamland of rainbows and delight, a 30 year old woman is the recipient of a great many gifts that a woman under 30 simply cannot receive. A 30 year old mother, for example, conjures images of a stable, loving woman who knows how to nurture her children and has some wisdom to offer on the ever illusive art of parenthood. A 30 year old wife is one who has worked the kinks, accepted her faults and sees the disasters coming in time to at least flinch in anticipation, all the while falling deeper in love. A 30 year old woman knows how to cut her hair (she's already committed all the hair related crimes in her teens and twenties and has now settled comfortably knowing that a pixie cut just doesn't work for everyone). A 30 year old woman walks with an air of confidence and realisation that life is in full swing and the time for waiting and sitting idly on the sideline is over. And most importantly (here is the heart of the heart of my daydream) a 30 year old woman requires and receives respect from those around her, young and old. Her efforts are no longer seen as the passionate yearnings of a young and somewhat flighty girl, but as researched and well earned talent. Suddenly, upon turning 30, a woman has a voice that is heard just that little bit more than the 29 year old sitting next to her. She could write a book, she could speak to the masses, she could enter into politics, she could be taken seriously!
The loveliest part of my walk on the clouds is that as I am not yet 30 there is nothing to quell my excitement or prove my naivete ridiculous. I can, quite happily, spend the next two years turning 30 on purpose! Looking forward to all things great, preparing for the well respected life of a 30 year old woman, knowing that the best is yet to come! And though the not so welcome visitor of reality does come a-knocking from time to time and I know that although silver lined there are still clouds, I can in all my youthful passion, pour the glass of my life half full and look forward with purpose and dignity to being 30 and all the wonderful things that come with it.
Decision: Disasters aren't disasters until they get here. No point looking for them.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Preparation Soup
I am not a preparation person. For example, it does not occur to me when starting out on a dinner soup making expedition to check that I have my "zz zz" machine before I start (you know the kitchen appliance I'm talking about right? It's called a stick mixer I think...or something like that. It's tall and skinny and goes "zz zz" when you press the button). Nor does it occur to me that perhaps trusting the website which made roasting and peeling capsicums sound like something anyone who knows how to boil an egg could do with their eyes closed was not such a good idea. Roast, cool and peel. Now I'm sure that to many people, it is a simple task. And perhaps with a little more reading and preparation I could have avoided the disaster which left me peeling sticky, red, paper thin skin in various shapes and sizes off the darn things for 20 minutes with a toddler alternating the activities of sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor crying and clinging to my legs whimpering. And so you might be able to empathize with my frustration when, after close to 2 hours of washing and chopping and roasting and boiling and stirring and (grrr) peeling, it finally pops into that thing I loosely refer to as my brain that I took my "zz zz" machine to work and never did bring it back home.
And so there I stand, in a kitchen decorated with dry, curled up pieces of capsicum skin, watching a pot of very homemade roast pumpkin, garlic and capsicum simmer away with no way of making it into soup. And since the little person has now stopped alternating and chosen to stick with clinging to my legs, I'm forced to stand on the spot watching the clock creep past 6:45 and drink in the fullness of my lack of preparation, which has now resulted in a lack of dinner.
To make matters ever so slightly worse, I now have to share the oh so lovely news of my self inflicted disaster with my oh so patient husband, who has not only worked a 10 hour day at the cafe, but has already come home once, collected an assortment of very manly tools and returned to the cafe to fix the toilet door which apparently is about to fall off at any moment, and only in the last 20 minutes or so has finally been able to sit down and relax. He, constantly surprising me with his lack of surprise at times such as this, agrees to go back to the cafe (for the third time) and collect my "zz zz" machine so that we can in fact eat dinner at some point. And I am left to ponder the preposterous nature of my latest disaster.
Thankfully, the soup, when it was finally served to a tired man and his wife at the coffee table of a rather messy lounge room, after two children had been fed left over ham and cheese and sent to bed, was in fact delicious and very close to being worth the thought, time, effort and resulting disaster. And I am once again reminded that my disasters become increasingly insignificant with the addition of a little delicious-soup perspective.
Decision: Preparation decreases chance of disaster. Must work on that.
And so there I stand, in a kitchen decorated with dry, curled up pieces of capsicum skin, watching a pot of very homemade roast pumpkin, garlic and capsicum simmer away with no way of making it into soup. And since the little person has now stopped alternating and chosen to stick with clinging to my legs, I'm forced to stand on the spot watching the clock creep past 6:45 and drink in the fullness of my lack of preparation, which has now resulted in a lack of dinner.
To make matters ever so slightly worse, I now have to share the oh so lovely news of my self inflicted disaster with my oh so patient husband, who has not only worked a 10 hour day at the cafe, but has already come home once, collected an assortment of very manly tools and returned to the cafe to fix the toilet door which apparently is about to fall off at any moment, and only in the last 20 minutes or so has finally been able to sit down and relax. He, constantly surprising me with his lack of surprise at times such as this, agrees to go back to the cafe (for the third time) and collect my "zz zz" machine so that we can in fact eat dinner at some point. And I am left to ponder the preposterous nature of my latest disaster.
Thankfully, the soup, when it was finally served to a tired man and his wife at the coffee table of a rather messy lounge room, after two children had been fed left over ham and cheese and sent to bed, was in fact delicious and very close to being worth the thought, time, effort and resulting disaster. And I am once again reminded that my disasters become increasingly insignificant with the addition of a little delicious-soup perspective.
Decision: Preparation decreases chance of disaster. Must work on that.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
La La Black Sheep
I have recently decided, in my infinite 28 year old wisdom, that my daily disasters are the sign posts to all things important and sane. I try (and fail) to gather my thoughts on today's disaster with Wiggly Waffle playing in the background and the mornings standard dishes in the sink. I am admittedly being incredibly selfish and rather snobbish in my use of the word disaster. Compared to the "real" disasters affecting (or is it effecting...I never can remember that one) so many others, natural or otherwise, my "disasters" are insignificant and miniscule. But one of the side effects of today's disaster (being that I am almost positive that a family of cotton wool has taken up residence in the gaping cavity where my brain used to be) is that I can't think of any other word and am too lazy to be thesaurus-y. So am staking my claim on the term and plowing ahead...no offense meant.
I consider parenting to be a series of unavoidable disasters. But at least I do have some level of choice in the matter. I can choose, for example, whether the disaster will be 15 straight minutes of listening to my daughter sing her 7 year old version of Ba Ba Black Sheep (which has affectionately been re-worded in honour of her younger sister who's nickname happens to be La La) at the top of her lungs, or I can choose to deal with the disasterous guilt-ball that will no doubt drop to the pit of my stomach when I ask her to stop and she replies "don't you like my singing Mum?".
Now this is a real quandary, 15 minutes really is a very long time and there's no signed contract saying that it will actually end at 15 minutes either, that's just a well educated guess on my part predicting when her little lungs and not so little attention span will run out of steam. And I am tired, having not had much sleep last night, the noise grates on my every nerve to the point where I think I'm starting to visibly twitch. Surely one rendition of La La Black Sheep is enough?! But will I be scarring her emotionality for life by asking her to stop? Will this be one of the things she shares with her high school counselor as she rattles off the (no doubt) long list of things her mother did to screw her up? Could she in fact, have some incredibly singer/songwriter-y talent, and I, the supposedly loving mother am simply squashing her talent without remorse? Disaster!!
Regardless of my decision on the matter, disaster of some sort was unavoidable. And so whether I am now stuck with a permanent twitch accompanied by a permanent loop of the hit track "La La Black Sheep" in my head for the rest of the day, or stuck with the feeling that I may have somehow managed to selfishly hurt some deep down part of the fragile 7 year old entrusted to my sometimes not so caring care, I'm stuck.
And so off I go into the day, permanently stuck. Yay! Parenting is a gift I do not deserve and one that I really wish came with a detailed instruction manual, if the sandwich press I got for my birthday came with one, I swear my kid should have!
Decision: Embrace disaster.
I consider parenting to be a series of unavoidable disasters. But at least I do have some level of choice in the matter. I can choose, for example, whether the disaster will be 15 straight minutes of listening to my daughter sing her 7 year old version of Ba Ba Black Sheep (which has affectionately been re-worded in honour of her younger sister who's nickname happens to be La La) at the top of her lungs, or I can choose to deal with the disasterous guilt-ball that will no doubt drop to the pit of my stomach when I ask her to stop and she replies "don't you like my singing Mum?".
Now this is a real quandary, 15 minutes really is a very long time and there's no signed contract saying that it will actually end at 15 minutes either, that's just a well educated guess on my part predicting when her little lungs and not so little attention span will run out of steam. And I am tired, having not had much sleep last night, the noise grates on my every nerve to the point where I think I'm starting to visibly twitch. Surely one rendition of La La Black Sheep is enough?! But will I be scarring her emotionality for life by asking her to stop? Will this be one of the things she shares with her high school counselor as she rattles off the (no doubt) long list of things her mother did to screw her up? Could she in fact, have some incredibly singer/songwriter-y talent, and I, the supposedly loving mother am simply squashing her talent without remorse? Disaster!!
Regardless of my decision on the matter, disaster of some sort was unavoidable. And so whether I am now stuck with a permanent twitch accompanied by a permanent loop of the hit track "La La Black Sheep" in my head for the rest of the day, or stuck with the feeling that I may have somehow managed to selfishly hurt some deep down part of the fragile 7 year old entrusted to my sometimes not so caring care, I'm stuck.
And so off I go into the day, permanently stuck. Yay! Parenting is a gift I do not deserve and one that I really wish came with a detailed instruction manual, if the sandwich press I got for my birthday came with one, I swear my kid should have!
Decision: Embrace disaster.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)